- 2 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00After 25 years as a chef, cooking is still my passion.
00:05Lifting a lid, look at that.
00:08I'm constantly exploring new ways to reinvent the classics.
00:12Come on, this is Christmas in a cup.
00:15But the secret to an Italian dish
00:17always starts with the best produce.
00:20The one and only prosciutto di parma.
00:22In this series, I'm going to share my key ingredients
00:25to quintessential Italian cooking.
00:27This is the part where I get really excited.
00:30And of course, I'll show you how to make those ingredients shine
00:34with some creative and delicious recipes
00:36that will take your Italian cooking to the next level.
00:40So please stay tuned, sit, relax, and let me do the cooking.
00:49Buongiorno and welcome back to Luca's Key Ingredient.
00:53Today's ingredient is something really close to my heart, anchovies.
00:56I love anchovies a lot.
00:58I've got three amazing simple dishes ready to go for you.
01:02One, it's a beautiful broccoli and anchovies flan.
01:05It's the kind of take of a broccoli pasta with anchovies that works so well,
01:09but turn into a side dish with an anchovy sauce.
01:12Then we're going to make an epic crumb butterfly prawns
01:15with stracciatella cheese, candied lemon, and anchovies, of course.
01:19And then we're going to wrap it up with the most traditional Sicilian pasta dish,
01:24which is pasta con le sarde.
01:26If you know what it is, stay tuned and don't go away.
01:30I'm all set up and ready to show you my first dish.
01:33It's a broccoli flan.
01:35So very, very simple.
01:37You can substitute the broccoli with any veg you like.
01:41Normally at home, I do this when my broccoli have been sitting there a little bit too long.
01:45And all you've got to do, that's how simple it is, is pour some heavy cream to it.
01:51Then we're going to add two eggs, crack them straight into the mixer.
01:59Then we're going to go in with a pinch of salt, not too much,
02:02because then we're going to have a beautiful anchovy sauce coming up next,
02:05that will definitely increase the level of flavor and saltiness.
02:09Cracked pepper.
02:10Of course, Parmigiano Reggiano is going to add another great layer of flavor indeed.
02:15And because I just happened to have it,
02:17I'm going to use my very own extra virgin olive oil, chili oil.
02:21Get the lid on top.
02:22That's it.
02:23And now we're going to make some noise.
02:29And that is it.
02:30This is how quick our flan mixer takes to be made.
02:34And I'm ready to pour all of that goodness inside these little ramekins.
02:40Now, you can serve these in a couple of different ways.
02:43I like to serve them as a side dish most of the time.
02:46Make sure to melt some butter and brush it inside the ramekin.
02:50And then I just roll those ramekins with some panko bread crumb.
02:53So I'm going to put this down.
02:56Meanwhile, I'm going to turn my kettle on because I need boiling water.
02:59We're going to put this in a water bath while we put it in the oven.
03:02And then we're going to start pouring the mixture pretty much all the way until we get to the blue
03:08line.
03:10So they will raise a little bit.
03:12It's not a souffle.
03:13It's a flan.
03:14So there's obviously eggs.
03:16And the egg white will definitely sort of increase the volume during the cooking process.
03:20But then they're going to kind of come out of the oven nice and puffed up.
03:24And then they will deflate a little bit.
03:26Now that I'm done, I'm going to put some hot water in here.
03:29We're going to cook this water bath in an oven preheated at 180 degrees.
03:33And this little one probably within 10 and 12 minutes will be just perfect.
03:37Now, while my flan are cooking, a very, very simple, beautiful anchovy sauce.
03:43It's got cream.
03:44So it's going to mellow down the flavor of the anchovies.
03:46So in this case scenario, I've chosen these Cantabric Sea anchovies.
03:51Let me tell you all about it.
03:53Once you peel them off, I mean, just look at the inside.
03:56Tell me, even if you don't really like anchovies, tell me if this doesn't look amazing.
04:01So these, they come from the Cantabric Sea.
04:03We're talking about north of Europe, above Spain.
04:06Those waters are quite cold.
04:08And basically what it does, it gives the actual anchovies a very, very firm type of texture
04:13and quite strong flavor profile.
04:16Like, almost like a prosciutto per se, right?
04:18Which is not, is not.
04:19Nevertheless, they are preserved.
04:21And then in a nice saucepan, they're simply adding the anchovies into it.
04:26We're going to just stir up a little bit of these anchovies in extra virgin olive oil.
04:31I'm going to grab a spatula and we're going to turn these around until they start softening down.
04:40As you can see, in no time, they're just melting away.
04:44They're just breaking apart.
04:46The smell is delicious.
04:47It's actually quite subtle with anchovies.
04:49Now we've got cream again.
04:51All of that in.
04:52We're going to stir this up.
04:54Now, the remaining part for the sauce, it's a little bit of cornstarch and milk.
04:59So what I'm going to do, I'm going to pour the milk into my cornstarch and literally just start mixing
05:06up the starch.
05:07And we're going to slowly add it to the sauce until as it boils, it will start thicken.
05:14And as you can see, it's slowly thickening up.
05:18Okay.
05:19And that's about it.
05:20I'm going to turn the heat off.
05:21I'm going to move this onto my bench.
05:25Now, I want to turn this into a very nice, smooth, creamy sauce.
05:29So get yourself a hand blender and then very gently start mixing this up.
05:33After this, I'm going to check on my little flan and we should be ready to plate up.
05:43And here they are.
05:44Look at those.
05:46And as you can see, they risen up and now slowly, slowly, they're going to sink down and settle.
05:51So I'm going to quickly and carefully remove this from the water bath.
05:56They hot, but you know, my little years in the kitchen are definitely helping.
06:02Okay.
06:03We're going to let this sit for a couple of minutes and then we're going to bring it all together
06:06in a beautiful platter.
06:08And now the time has come.
06:10I'm going to get these out of those little ramekins.
06:12So the back of a plain knife, just on the edges, just like so.
06:16And as long as you can go around like that, yeah, I feel pretty comfortable that it's going to come
06:20out.
06:20It looks like they're really cooked through nicely, but it feels very soft as well.
06:25All right.
06:26So I've got four, which is plenty for what I need to do.
06:29I'm going to get my beautiful platter.
06:30I thought, like I said, to put them into a nice platter.
06:34Back to my beautiful anchovy sauce.
06:36And just as it is, straight from my saucepan, we're going to pour that extremely generously onto the platter.
06:44Okay.
06:45And now, are you ready?
06:47We're going to do this quickly.
06:48Bang it, lift it.
06:50Yay.
06:50It looks really, really good.
06:52I'm going to do another one.
06:54Two out of two.
06:54Let's see how good I can get.
06:57Three out of three.
06:59All right.
06:59Last one.
07:00I want to do four.
07:01Yes.
07:02Little tool, little spatula, gently from underneath.
07:06And my idea was to place one here.
07:09And we just repeat.
07:11I think four, yeah, it's beautiful and perfect for this platter.
07:15Now, I did toast it.
07:18A little bit of almond to create a bit of texture with this beautiful dish.
07:21And I'm going to drizzle with a few drops.
07:25And lastly, a couple of baby green leaves to make this look even more pretty than what this already looks.
07:32So just like that, scatter some of those green leaves, a little bit of cracked pepper.
07:39And then we have it, guys.
07:40Such a humble broccoli flan and hands with these delicious cantabric sea anchovies.
07:46Guys, too, too simple.
07:48Perfect way to get the patty started.
08:02I'm so excited about this next recipe.
08:05I'm going to peel those prawns.
08:06We're going to butterfly them, crumb them, fry them.
08:09We're going to use these beautiful anchovies, which have been wrapped around a famous caper called
08:15caper from Pantelleria.
08:17But now, just back to the little prawn.
08:18I really want to show you what I'm doing.
08:20And we want to peel all the way to the very last part of the shell, maintaining the tail on.
08:27Now, prawn all peeled up.
08:29Get yourself a very sharp knife.
08:32You want to run the knife underneath the head and be very, very gentle while you do that.
08:38Run it all the way down.
08:40Actually, let me put this on the side.
08:41We need to remove the vein at the back and I can scrape it off.
08:45Okay.
08:46At this stage, let's return putting the prawn sitting flat and gently, again, run the blade.
08:53So, this was just to show you how I prepared this earlier.
08:57We got the prawns ready to go.
08:59So, all I'm going to do here, I'm going to mix up a little bit of egg.
09:05So, keeping the fork here, gently.
09:08This is going to be very gentle, guys.
09:10Flour, then flip them around again.
09:13Shake it off.
09:14Again, very, very gentle.
09:17Be gentle because if this breaks, we're going to get upset after all the hard work that we've done,
09:22right?
09:23So, you're going to let it dip in again in flour to the same pellet.
09:30So, put one more in there.
09:33Okay.
09:34Facing down.
09:35That's it.
09:35Shaking off the flour.
09:37Okay.
09:38So, breadcrumb and these next to each other.
09:41Now, let's try to do the same thing again.
09:44Make sure that you've got plenty of egg liquid, right?
09:46To make sure that they're all covered up.
09:50Grab breadcrumb generously and then, again, grab it gently.
09:54And we've got our beautiful butterfly prawns, okay?
09:58I'm going to lay this here.
10:00Slowly, slowly, the prawn, the egg will just allow the breadcrumb to get stuck properly.
10:05I'm going to finish off these two.
10:07And shallow fry these in extra virgin olive oil for extra flavor.
10:10And then, we're going to put it all together.
10:19Okay.
10:20My prawns are ready to go.
10:21Extra virgin is on.
10:23And then, I've got all my beautiful ingredients here ready to go.
10:26I'm going to open these beautiful anchovies.
10:28They've been wrapped around with capers.
10:31So, I'm going to get them out of the tin.
10:33So, it's kind of easier for me to work with them.
10:35So, let's concentrate on the prawn.
10:37Good cookware.
10:38Always need it.
10:39As always, I'm cooking on my Swiss diamond cookware.
10:43Great quality and retains the heat dramatically well.
10:47And that's very important when you're going to deep fry.
10:50So, go in with your prawns.
10:52As you can see, I'm being very, very gentle and very careful.
10:56It really takes two or three minutes.
10:59It wouldn't really probably take much more than that on each side.
11:02As soon as they come off, we're going to go in and lay a little slice of this amazing guanciale.
11:11Guanciale is the pure cheek of the pork, which has so much flavor.
11:15So, the idea is the heat and the warmth of the prawns will sort of allow that to warm through.
11:21Now, this is dangerous.
11:23I've got to be very, very careful.
11:24I really don't want them to break.
11:25Let's go underneath.
11:26Turn them around.
11:27Yes.
11:28Nice and golden.
11:30Beautiful.
11:30Look at that.
11:32Nice.
11:33While they're already cooking and hot, let a pinch of salt heat off.
11:37And what I'm going to do now is to grab them.
11:40And I'll show you quickly what I'm doing.
11:42Lay them flat first.
11:44Then while they're hot, like I said, I need to take advantage of that.
11:47And I want the guanciale to warm through it.
11:49And now, put this on top.
11:52Look at this.
11:54Actually, I'm going to use my little tweezers.
11:56Sorry, it looks a bit too chef-y, but it makes my life easier.
12:01Done.
12:01Step number one.
12:03Step number two, beautiful stracciatella.
12:06So a little bit of stracciatella and room temperature.
12:10Very important.
12:11Just a little bit, guys.
12:12And now, you know, if you go to a Japanese restaurant,
12:15there's always a little bit of mayonnaise on your deep fried prawns.
12:17Let's say that I'm using stracciatella instead of that.
12:21I want something creamy to go along with this.
12:52Let's do this.
12:53You can the same quantity of sugar and water, and you cook them down until all the sugar and water
12:59is evaporated.
13:01It is the canned fruit you'll find into a panettone in Italy or a lot of Christmas cake.
13:05Now that I have all of these happening all together, I'm going to grab two of them.
13:10I've got one we're going to put here, here.
13:43And I'll show you the last step.
13:45And this, I think, is an epic entree starter.
13:48Call it whatever you want.
13:49Simple.
13:50All the effort is really into deep frying those prawns and butterfly them.
13:54But honestly, stracciatella, the candied lemon, the anchovies, and simple prawns,
13:59put together like that.
14:00It's so simple, but oh my god.
14:02I just can't wait for the camera to stop rolling, and I'm going to jump right into it.
14:19Now for the last recipe, I have an amazing, simple pasta dish from the island of Sicily.
14:26It's the famous pasta con le sarde.
14:29Pasta with sardines.
14:31The very first step of the recipe is the classic pan grattato.
14:34We are going to go and flavor that pan grattato, breadcrumb.
14:38Plenty of extra virgin olive oil from the beginning.
14:41Breadcrumb straight in it.
14:43We're using panko breadcrumb right here.
14:46And then straight with a garlic clove, okay?
14:49So low heat, allow the breadcrumb to be sort of coated all from the extra virgin olive oil.
14:56And at this stage, you can start introducing a little bit of heat.
14:59I'm using my very own extra virgin olive oil infused with chili.
15:03And you know, down in that part of the world, they love their spicy food.
15:07I love spicy food.
15:08And now that it's getting nice and golden, time has come to introduce the last two ingredients.
15:14I'm going in with a little bit of parsley, chopped up.
15:17I'm going to stir this in.
15:19And now that this is perfectly done, I'm going to turn the heat off.
15:25And the very last touch is going in with a little bit of lemon zest.
15:30Sicily is so famous for their citrus, right?
15:34So the zest goes in.
15:36The smell of the lemon has already hit my nose.
15:41Okay.
15:42Now, next step, we're going to get started with a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.
15:48And again, because I'm not using dried chili or fresh chili, I'm going to keep going with my chili oil.
15:54Plenty of flavor, plenty of heat.
15:56Okay.
15:57As this is happening, spring onion.
16:00You can use onion, of course, if spring onions are not in season.
16:03Roughly chop them, not too big, not too small either.
16:06All of these straight into our large frying pan.
16:10While this is cooking, I'm going to keep an eye on that breadcrumb.
16:13Because I know my little cookware here is still very hot.
16:17This is just golden.
16:18It's perfect.
16:19So I'm going to stop the cooking by simply transferring this breadcrumb into a bowl.
16:26Okay.
16:27I'm going to keep this aside.
16:29All right.
16:30Back to my frying pan.
16:32Gently stirring my spring onions.
16:34Pinch of salt is going to make them soft and even sweeter.
16:38Garlic cloves.
16:39You can finely chop them.
16:41I like to crush them and put them straight in.
16:44I like to put them after my onions.
16:46Bit of a stir.
16:49But right in here, while it's cooking, we need some pine nuts straight into my frying pan.
16:55We need some sultanas.
16:57Okay.
16:57Look for great qualities.
16:59Meanwhile, I'm going to soak.
17:02I got white wine.
17:03Pinch of saffron threads going in.
17:07Moving this aside.
17:09Stirring my sauce.
17:11And I kind of want the spring onions to cook, but also for my pine nuts to start toasting a
17:17little bit.
17:18Now, little, little trick.
17:20We're going to use our boiling water to blanch our fennel tops.
17:25I'm going to do this.
17:27Put my fennel tops in water.
17:31Gently.
17:31Look at this.
17:32In and out.
17:32In and out.
17:33So literally blanch, like 30 seconds.
17:37Drain them well.
17:38And we're going to go straight into our frying pan.
17:40Straight in here.
17:42Beautiful.
17:43While this is happening, let me give this a stir and a toss.
17:47At this stage, I'm going to turn the heat off because I've done most of the work on the sauce.
17:52We're going to come back to this.
17:53But I want to get ahead.
17:55And we're going to cook our spaghetti.
17:58High quality, always needed.
18:00Spaghetti going in.
18:01Throw them all of them around.
18:03While you're cooking your pasta, always give a very, very good stir from the get-go.
18:08The main starch release will happen right here, right now.
18:11So as long as you give a very good stir, this will come back to a boil in a couple
18:16of seconds.
18:16And we're good to go.
18:26Back to my sauce.
18:29Acciughe Sicilian anchovies.
18:32It says Canale di Sicilia, Sicilian channel.
18:35So the waters down there, they're quite warm.
18:37The actual anchovy having a very, very delicate flavor profile.
18:43Let me show you the anchovies.
18:45These, they tend to be a little bit softer in texture.
18:48They're sweet.
18:49They're definitely sweet as a flavor profile against the cantabric one.
18:54So I'm going to chop just a little bit of anchovies straight into my frying pan.
18:57And now, last, I'm going in with my beautiful sardines.
19:02It is called pasta con le sarde.
19:05So pasta with sardines.
19:07Okay.
19:07A little pinch of salt on them.
19:09Not much because we've got anchovies adding the saltiness to it.
19:12At this stage, pick up a lot of color.
19:15And we're going to go in with our wine and saffron.
19:19Allow this to evaporate.
19:23Ladies and gentlemen, I wish you were in the studio with me.
19:26The smell is complex, not fishy at all.
19:30And the fennel tops are really, really contributing to the dish indeed.
19:36Now, the pasta literally has got a couple of minutes.
19:39Drain your pasta nice and al dente.
19:41And by nice and al dente, I mean undercook it, but at least two minutes.
19:46You won't allow the pasta to finish up cooking by absorbing whatever goodness you got in your frying pan.
19:52Okay.
19:52And now you start tossing this around.
19:55I'm going to give a little bit more of the cooking water.
19:58This flavor of the pasta, nutrition, a little bit of the salt.
20:02It will just help create the lovely glossy look to the pasta.
20:08Okay.
20:09Turning the heat off.
20:10Drizzle of extra virgin olive oil as I'm chatting.
20:14Last final toss.
20:17I'm going to return these two little pieces of sardines in the frying pan.
20:22So they're going to get a little bit nice and warm.
20:24Then put it inside of a ladle and twist.
20:28Well, I don't want to make it too fancy, right?
20:30That's what we do in a restaurant.
20:31I just want to go at least in the middle of the plate with a decent, decent shape.
20:36I'm not going to let it sit up.
20:37I'm going to let it slide.
20:38Okay.
20:39Let's see very carefully.
20:41What I really want to do is to start going searching for all of these amazing sultanas and
20:48pine nuts.
20:50Okay.
20:52Done.
20:53Then I'm going to get my sardines.
20:55Just a couple for garnish.
20:57One here.
21:00The fragrance of the saffron and everything else is amazing.
21:05All right.
21:06We're kind of done.
21:07Not yet.
21:08This is where this comes into play.
21:10So it's lemony, parsley, amazing texture.
21:16Go from the height like that.
21:18Let it fall down.
21:20And last, because we used it before and I want a bit of heat, a good drizzle of extra virgin
21:26olive oil with chili.
21:27Oh, I hope I was able to give you a fantastic journey through the wonderful world of anchovies.
21:33We started with this beautiful, light and fluffy broccoli flan with the anchovy sauce.
21:39And then we made those amazing prawns, crumbed and fried in extra virgin olive oil.
21:44And last, pasta con le sarde, a true tribute to Sicilian gastronomy.
21:50Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you're going to go and get some anchovies, the good stuff, and get cooking.
21:56And I have made those that have candy cleanest.
21:56And I think, it should be amazing.
Comments